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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29456856">White Feathers</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadastre/pseuds/cadastre'>cadastre</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>1917 (Movie 2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Gen, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Canon, Protective Siblings, Siblings, World War I, non-graphic references to violence/death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 19:34:49</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,972</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29456856</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/cadastre/pseuds/cadastre</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Tom is determined to volunteer for the Army; Joe is desperate to keep his brother safe.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>14</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>White Feathers</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Based on a prompt from the marvelous @Ealasaid. Thanks for the inspiration (and excuse to write angst XD)!</p><p>Un-beta'd; all errors are my own.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>As he makes his way to his family’s farm, Joe is glad for his uniform.</p><p>Despite the war the train station is fairly crowded, and he can see the Order of the White Feather girls lurking near the exit. They smile at him as he passes (he recognizes at least two of them from various social dances before he enlisted), but as he walks out of the station he hears them haranguing some unfortunate man who has clearly made the mistake of either not enlisting or not wearing his uniform.</p><p>After the chaos of the Front and his transit home he sags with relief at the quiet of the farm as he walks down the lane. The cherry trees are full of pale blossoms and birds flitting from twig to twig; the flowers along the lane stretch towards the sun as bees meander lazily from bloom to bloom, and the cows in the next field over come to investigate him. It’s all exactly as it should be, all exactly as he had hoped it would be. The concrete proof that home still <em>exists</em>, after the churning mud and death of the Front, is almost enough to make him weep with relief.</p><p>He doesn’t have the chance, though, before Tom comes pelting down the drive with Myrtle in tow, whooping and hollering like a proper lunatic.</p><p>He’s rather grateful for the warning, since it gives him the opportunity to brace himself for Tom’s aggressive hug and Myrtle’s prancing around his ankles in an apparent effort to trip him.</p><p>Joe takes in his brother as they stride up the drive towards the house and their mother: he’s finally hit his growth spurt, is far taller than Joe remembers from before, and his shoulders have started to fill out despite the baby fat that still clings to his frame. With a twist of his gut Joe tamps down the unbidden thought: <em>he looks just like some of the lads in my unit.</em></p><p>Joe’s mother is suitably delighted to have him home, as demonstrated by the approximately eight pounds of freshly-baked cherry pie she shovels onto his plate and the constant stream of comments on how they must not be feeding him enough, how he looks peaky, is he getting enough rest? Joe is happy to deflect all of his mother’s worry, is happy to bask in the feeling of being home as they take tea in the garden. He even manages to hide his flinch when his mother and Tom both unexpectedly dive under the table to retrieve a dropped napkin.</p><p>It’s only Tom’s questions that throw a wrench in his quiet pleasure at having returned.</p><p>“What’s it like at the Front?”</p><p>“Does the artillery sound like fireworks?”</p><p>“Are there really rats in the trenches?”</p><p>“Have you shot anyone yet?”</p><p>It’s that last question that finally has their mother snapping at Tom to be quiet and let Joe rest, and Joe is grateful. He hopes that their mother didn’t notice the look he is certain passed over his face when Tom asked it.</p><p>
  <em>The answer is yes. The answer is yes, he shot someone barely two weeks before going on leave, and he can’t get the cries of the Hun, as the man lay dying for an entire day and night, out of his dreams.</em>
</p><p>After Tom’s endless stream of queries stops, Joe is able to turn the discussion to the village and the farm. He listens fondly to their mother’s recounting of the vegetable varieties they have in the garden, of her success at grafting a new type of apple to the tree behind the cold cellar, to the list of who in the village took puppies from Myrtle’s most recent litter.</p><p>When their mother returns to the kitchen to put on more water for tea he turns to Tom. Without thinking he says, with a roguish grin, “I saw some of the village girls at the station. You must have to fight them off, with all the men gone.”</p><p>He doesn’t realize it’s the wrong thing to say until a heartbeat after he’s already said it.</p><p>Tom frowns, face creasing with the ferocity of his emotion.</p><p>“Those hags, the White Feather brigade? Not bloody likely—” An outraged noise from their mother comes from inside the kitchen at his language before Tom drops his voice. “—Sorry, mum. Not likely. They’re only interested in you if you’ve got a uniform, and they’ll give you one of their stupid feathers if you don’t. They gave Peter down the lane one a month ago, and he went and signed up the next day.”</p><p>Something in Tom’s face catches Joe’s attention.</p><p>“They haven’t given you one, though, right?” Tom won’t meet his eyes, and Joe feels fury boil through his veins. “You’re not even old enough to volunteer! Those trollops—” An even more outraged noise from their mother forces him to lower his voice as well, but he won’t recant his words. “Those trollops ought to find a real way to help with the war.”</p><p>Joe had expected that to put Tom back in good humor, but he finds himself mistaken. Tom instead puts on a mulish expression with which Joe is all too familiar.</p><p>“I’m almost old enough! I’ll be eighteen in September!”</p><p>Joe’s blood goes cold. With his time at the Front he’s lost track of almost everything at home, and for some reason it isn’t until this exact moment that he realizes how close Tom is to being eligible for service. How close he is to being thrown into the meat grinder that awaits them all across the Channel. It’s like having a bucket of ice water poured over him, and for a second it’s all Joe can do to breathe. The sounds of the dying German echo in his ears and his heart pounds: he has to do something to stop this, to stop Tom from being caught up in the war. But as he thinks it, he already knows there’s nothing he can do. Nothing he can do except convince Tom to stay out of it for as long as possible, to stay safe for as long as he is allowed to be.</p><p>Joe’s racing thoughts are interrupted as their mother returns with more tea and some sandwiches, and conversation quickly turns to other topics.</p><p>---</p><p>Falling asleep should be easy, in his soft bed and private room, but instead he finds it impossible. He desperately wants a drink of <em>something</em> to make that bloody German stop screaming for long enough to let him <em>sleep</em>.</p><p>Joe thinks he’s been decently quiet in sneaking down to the kitchen to steal some of mother’s medicinal whiskey that he knows she keeps hidden in the pantry. But when he goes to close the door, bottle in hand, he is startled to find Tom on the other side of it.</p><p>“<em>Christ</em>, Tom, give a man a heart attack!” he whispers fiercely, and goes to push past his brother. Joe can feel the lingering tingle of nerves down his spine from his fright, and it’s just another thing that makes him ache for the burn of alcohol. But something in Tom’s face makes him pause. “What’s wrong?”</p><p>“I’m going to volunteer.” Tom’s got that mulish expression of his on again, but something about the hour of the night or the fact they’re standing barefoot in the kitchen must make Joe see a shadow of hesitancy (of fear?) behind it.</p><p>Joe pauses. He doesn’t want to do this right now, but upon reflection it might be the best time. At least their mother won’t interrupt them this time.</p><p>With a sigh Joe grabs two teacups from the counter, quietly opens the back door, and leads Tom out to the orchard where they can talk without getting caught.</p><p>Tom’s face is pale in the light of the full moon, and he looks surprised when Joe pours him a finger of whiskey along with one for himself.</p><p>“Why do you want to volunteer?” Joe feels ancient, a thousand years old, and he drains his first round almost without feeling it and helps himself to another. There is not enough whiskey in the world for this.</p><p>“It’s my duty! The country needs every man it can get.”</p><p>Joe bites back the retort that Tom isn’t a man, he’s his <em>brother</em>, because he knows with certainty that saying that will only make things worse.</p><p>“There’s lots of men. It doesn’t have to be you,” Joe instead replies flatly. He stares up at the moon and the stars scattered across the sky, doesn’t let himself think about the flares and shell-bursts he is certain are lighting up the night over the trenches two hundred miles away.</p><p>“They’ll draft me anyways, and I want to go. That way the White Feather bints will stop bothering me every time I go to the butcher.” Tom grins, but Joe feels sick. That Tom thinks any passing annoyance could outweigh what is waiting for him in France is madness, but he can’t think of a way to make Tom see it.</p><p>“The Front is bad, Tom. It’s really bad. There’s barbed wire and snipers and poison gas. Men die there every single day, by the thousands, and if you aren’t one of the ones dying you’re one of the ones killing them.” <em>And then you have to listen to them scream in your dreams every night after</em>, he doesn’t add.</p><p>“It’s still better than them asking me when I plan to sign up for the hundredth time,” Tom says, with a smile and a roll of his eyes.</p><p> Joe feels a burst of rage and frustration so intense that it briefly whites out his vision. He breathes in and out and in again, trying to calm the anger that is about to erupt, but the pause does nothing to stop the whistle of shells he finds himself listening for even now in their cherry orchard, or the instinctive nakedness he feels without his gas mask immediately to hand.</p><p>“<em>Don’t you dare joke about it</em>,” Joe snarls, doesn’t bother to keep the fury out of his voice. He needs Tom to understand. “You have <em>no idea</em>—you’ve <em>no idea</em> what it’s like.”</p><p><em>I’m not alright,</em> he longs to add, but the words stick in his throat, hurt to much to say. <em>No one there is alright, and I can’t stand the thought of what it will do to you. I can’t stand the thought of seeing you flinch when Myrtle barks or of you having to sneak down to steal whiskey so you can sleep. </em> An additional thought barely surfaces before he dismisses it as unthinkable: <em> I can’t stand the thought of you being shot and dying slowly over an entire day, and for no one to be able to help.</em> </p><p>Joe takes a moment to catch his breath, to take another gulp of whiskey. His hands are shaking, and he waits for them to still before he continues.</p><p>“I know you’ll get conscripted. I just…please, Tom. <em>Please.</em> Don’t rush it. Stay out of it as long as you can. <em>Please</em>, if you won’t do it for me then do it for mum.”</p><p>Joe glances over to see if he’s made any impact, and is unsurprised but still disappointed to see Tom’s same determined frown. Tom drains his whiskey, coughs fiercely for a moment, and then stands and crosses his arms.</p><p>“If you got to volunteer then so do I.”</p><p>As Tom stalks back to the house Joe pours himself an entire teacup of liquor. <em>I couldn't stop any of it</em>, he thinks in despair. He settles himself so he is cradled against his favorite cherry tree and watches the stars wheel through the sky until the German’s screams quiet enough that he can fall into a dreamless sleep.</p>
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